Saturday, August 17, 2013

Passages:
When Obama said, a few days ago, that the NSA didn't “actually”
abuse its ability to monitor everything you do, he
lied
was wrong. Its own documents show that in one recent year the agency
had engaged in “unauthorized collection, storage, access to or
distribution of legally protected communications,” 2,776 times.
Just in the DC area.

False
Dawn, Part 34:
The headline assured us that housing starts were on the rise in
July. This is true as long as you define 'housing starts' to be
multifamily projects, not single family homes; they were down 2.2%
from June. Sometimes the facts ruin the happy pictures.

What
Could Go Wrong?
Ecuador has set aside an area of the Amazon eight times larger than
greater Los Angeles as a nature reserve and oil field. The oil field
part trumps the nature reserve part because the government needs to
increase its revenues immediately, and what better way to do that
than to despoil some pristine wilderness?

Quoted:
"Never before has the manipulation of money counted for so much
and the real-world economy of people and consumer goods counted for
so little. And none of it is an accident."

One
More Time:
Would someone please tell Phil Gramm that poor people did not cause
the Current Unpleasantness, he did. Or at least helped greatly
through dismantling the federal regulation of the financial system
and clearing the way for predatory mortgage products, out-of-control
securitization and unregulated derivatives markets. Repeating lies
does not make them true.

Collateral
Damage:
The State of Texas, being sued for the discriminatory nature of its
newly crafted voting districts, maintains that it had no intention of
discriminating against blacks and Latinos, only Democrats. If they
were inadvertently harmed by the process it was because they were (or
were suspected of being) Democrats.

Rant
Of The Day:
Yves' A Disturbance In The Force easily qualifies as the best rant
of the day, with the following caveat: It is a meditation on the
ongoing dismantling of the broad social and political architecture
that served as the foundation for the Industrial Revolution with the
aim of destroying the economic and civil rights ordinary people.

Life
As We Know It:
“Stock and bond prices tumbled after stronger-than-expected
economic data …” We live in a world where good economic news
causes the markets to fall. Strange.

Baked
In...If
you have been having trouble getting a good sense of what 'global
warming' is all about, what it means to you and will mean to your
children, try this: Let's define a severe heat wave as a three week
period where the temperature is consistently three standard
deviations above the norm. Now imagine that it is 2020 and such
things happen twice as often as they do today. Then imagine that it
is 2040 and they happen four times as often. Then think about the
heat waves that are in the 5th standard deviation from today's norm -
such things do not happen now, but by 2040 they will, with increasing
frequency. And this is what is already in the works, in the CO2 in
the atmosphere. Not 'if' but what is going to happen even if we never
burn another lump of coal or gallon of gas. Going. To. Happen.

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.